This still supports the conclusion that the action that is optimal for you personally doesn’t maximize social welfare. Maximizing social welfare is just another thing that will make those around you like you less, and in the case of the most efficient charities it will be compounded by them thinking it is weird and cult-ish.
If you were spending your time on some form of conspicuous consumption, this would be equally disliked as a resource drain.
In the context of signalling, that’s just not the way it works; what matters is their impression of you. Perhaps you were thinking of someone very close like your wife, to whom you don’t need to signal wealth?
Perhaps you were thinking of someone very close like your wife, to whom you don’t need to signal wealth?
Why would I want to signal wealth to anybody?
This still supports the conclusion that the action that is optimal for you personally doesn’t maximize social welfare.
What are you talking about? In some of the internet marketer circles I hang out in, it’s almost gauche to not be involved in some sort of charitable endeavor.
They are not particularly concerned about efficiency, true, but surely you can find some social circle that agrees with you. Hang out with GiveWell staff, if you must. ;-)
IOW, your language both in the post and this comment continue to strike me as victim-thinking. It’s not like we’re all forced to interact with exactly one social circle.
People don’t have perfect freedom choosing whom to interact with
But we have near-perfect freedom choosing whom not to interact with, and to choose our environment such that we either aren’t dependent upon others’ opinions of our status, or such that we are only interacting with those who have favorable perceptions of it.
In marketing terminology, this is called, “finding your niche”. ;-)
I emphatically agree. My strategy of choice is signaling that I’m an exciting person (by trying to actually be an exciting person), and I can’t imagine why charity would interfere with that.
This still supports the conclusion that the action that is optimal for you personally doesn’t maximize social welfare. Maximizing social welfare is just another thing that will make those around you like you less, and in the case of the most efficient charities it will be compounded by them thinking it is weird and cult-ish.
In the context of signalling, that’s just not the way it works; what matters is their impression of you. Perhaps you were thinking of someone very close like your wife, to whom you don’t need to signal wealth?
Why would I want to signal wealth to anybody?
What are you talking about? In some of the internet marketer circles I hang out in, it’s almost gauche to not be involved in some sort of charitable endeavor.
They are not particularly concerned about efficiency, true, but surely you can find some social circle that agrees with you. Hang out with GiveWell staff, if you must. ;-)
IOW, your language both in the post and this comment continue to strike me as victim-thinking. It’s not like we’re all forced to interact with exactly one social circle.
Why the bizarre absolute? People don’t have perfect freedom choosing whom to interact with, and to the extent that they don’t, Roko’s thesis holds.
But we have near-perfect freedom choosing whom not to interact with, and to choose our environment such that we either aren’t dependent upon others’ opinions of our status, or such that we are only interacting with those who have favorable perceptions of it.
In marketing terminology, this is called, “finding your niche”. ;-)
I emphatically agree. My strategy of choice is signaling that I’m an exciting person (by trying to actually be an exciting person), and I can’t imagine why charity would interfere with that.